Saturday, November 14, 2015

With the attacks in Paris sitting at the top of my newsfeed,
with Facebook lit up in Red, White and Blue, with Syrian refugees streaming
over the border and universities being bombed and people sleeping in the cold,
it seems small to sit here tonight and think about the many things still to do.

Because tonight we are warm. We are safe. Tonight I am able
to touch my children and know that they have never gone hungry a day in their
lives.

I’ve never been a great believer in the concept of spending
November remembering to be grateful, because gratitude is something that should
be celebrated daily, year round. But tonight, I am tired. I am stressed. I am
two steps away from curling up in a fetal position in the corner, tucking my
knees to my chest and not coming out until January.

Tonight, sitting here at my computer hearing from those in Paris
who are reaching out, I am ashamed. And desperately in need of the reminder of
how truly blessed we are.

So tonight, I want to celebrate thirty days of
gratitude with thirty reminders of how lucky I am to be who I am, where I am,
when I am. And as November passes, and the year passes with it, and days come
when I am tired and stressed and ready to give up, I will remember. I will
remember:

·That I have a home that keeps us warm and safe
and dry,

·I can go to sleep at night without fear,

·I have a family that loves me and stretches
around the world,

·My children are healthy,

·All of my children live together under my roof,

·My husband works hard to make sure our bills are
paid and we never go hungry,

·I have the opportunity to go to nursing school
and receive the education I need to do something I love,

·I will have the opportunity to do that something
in a manner that benefits my community and, someday, those less fortunate than
I,

·In two weeks, I get to start working at a job
that not only pays reasonably well, but that I’m absolutely certain I’ll enjoy,

·We have two working vehicles that take us where
we need to go,

·There is money in the bank if something breaks,

·Our refrigerator and pantry are full,

·We have good health insurance,

·Because we have good health insurance, I’ll
never have to choose between paying the bills and getting my children the care
and medications they need,

·We have the opportunity to offer four cats a
better life,

·We are able to sponsor and get to know a lovely
young woman that lives half a world away,

·We live near enough to a large urban area that
we’re never lacking for healthcare or dental providers,

·We live far enough away from a large urban area
that I’m not afraid to let my kids play outside,

·We have electricity and indoor plumbing,

·Because my husband’s job pays for our internet,
we always have a connection to the world,

Friday, August 28, 2015

Rolling into the end of the first week back at nursing
school and I…am…whipped. I also realized something last night, something
important that I want to bounce off the rest of you mamas out there. See, I’m
32 years old. My oldest son starts high school this year, which means he’ll be
a sophomore before I have my nursing license in hand. If I continue my
education any further, we’re going to end up going to college together.

I realized last night that although I’m excited to be going
back to school, I’m also embarrassed. Embarrassed to still be a student at this
stage in my life. Embarrassed to be seeking an associate’s degree to begin
gainful employment at the point where my peers have completed their education-or,
if they haven’t, are looking at graduate degrees while building their career.

My kids’ pediatrician is my age, and one of the girls I went
to middle school with is a dermatologist with her own practice. And here I am.

Now, intellectually, I know there’s nothing wrong with this.
I slipped in and out of college as my kids were born. I worked for a number of
years in a job that allowed me to work from home from the time my youngest was
born until he was in second grade. I’m not the oldest in my class by any
means-there are a number of women who are re-entering the workforce after
staying home with their kids, and many more who are switching careers like I
am.

I have three beautiful, fun, well-mannered, well-rounded
children. I’m celebrating my 12th wedding anniversary this year. We
own our home, and while money is tight the fact that I’m working sporadically
while going back to school isn’t killing us financially. All in all, I’m in a
good place in life. And yet part of me feels like I have something to be ashamed
of, and that, I think, is due largely in part to the way I feel I should
measure my success.

At this point, I feel like I should be as financially sound
as my friends without children, as well-educated as those that spent their
twenties getting doctorate degrees and MDs, my house should be as clean and
organized and decorated as Home and Garden, I should be as crafty as all those
moms out there that actually have…well…talent (because God knows my daughter
sure didn’t get her crafting skills from me) and as engaged in my kids’
classrooms and education and activities as moms who have one child they’ve been
at home with since the day they were born.

And I wonder why I’m stressed.

Right now, I need to take a step back and think, really
think, about what success means-and make it personal to ME, not to anyone
around me. For me, right now, success means doing well enough in nursing school
that I pass my licensing exam and have no trouble being accepted into a
bachelor’s and, eventually, nurse practitioner program. It means keeping the
house clean enough and organized enough that I’m a raging, raving mess by the
end of the week. (I learned last semester that a messy house and an empty
fridge really stress me out. You don’t even know.)

It’s having time every night to sit down and eat dinner with
my family, and being able to watch an episode of something on TV and tuck my
kids in at night. It’s taking Princess C to dance and going to Open House at
the elementary and high school on Open House night. It’s seeing the boys do
well, and mastering homeschooling to the point where Princess C both enjoys
herself and learns at the level I know she’s capable of. It’s saving up enough
money to take a vacation someplace besides our parents’ houses, and maybe
actually get that rickety garage pulled down sometime before Mother Nature does
the job for me.

These are my goals, and they’re the ones I need to use to
measure my success-not anyone else’s. It’s past time I stop expecting myself to
be perfect and start expecting myself to be me.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Hello! Oh, it feels good to be blogging again. For those of
you who follow the blog, I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch. When I hopped on
this morning to look, my last blog post was December of last year.

A month before I finally started my first semester of
nursing school. Coincidence? I think not! There’s nothing quite like nursing
school to suck every last ounce of time and sanity, and make entire months fly
by. Don’t get me wrong. I love every second of it. I am WAY past excited to
have passed my first semester and be moving into my second, and am greatly
looking forward to finishing school 18 months from now (finally) and become an official part of the healthcare team in our
community.

But while it feels like nursing school is consuming my life
right now, I still have the usual rigamarole of parenting on my plate,
including (but not limited to)…drumroll please…

BACK TO SCHOOL!

Yep, you know what I’m talking about. Rolling into the end
of August, it seems like there’s a never ending line of back to school nights
and freshman orientation (dear god when did I get a kid old enough to go to
high school?) and supply drop offs. Not to mention shopping for school supplies
in the first place.

We’re home schooling Princess C this year due to some
medical issues that made school an absolute nightmare for us last year. This
is a never-before-tried endeavor that I’m sure you’re going to find as
entertaining as we are. Or at least, I hope you will, or you’re probably going
to get sick of hearing me complain about it. For the record, I take donations
of wine and chocolate any time. I’m also happy to share. So when your own
nerves are stretched to the limit, come on over!

The boys, however, will be going back to public school. Mr.
A because he’s starting high school, which means Regents classes, and G-money because
the thought of having to homeschool more than one child on top of working part
time and going to school is enough to induce a full blown migraine just
thinking about it, and he doesn’t really want to home school anyway. Which
means it’s time to do the annual back to school shopping thing.

I’m one of those psycho parents that does all of their
school supply shopping in July, mostly because I know if I wait until August
there’s going to be a huge crowd of people everywhere I go and they’re going to
be out of what I need. And there’s always that one thing that the kids need
that no one on the planet actually carries, so I have to take the plunge and
order it online. Which usually means Amazon and two day delivery, but every
once in a while we actually find something that Amazon doesn’t carry and have
to order it regular express.

A note for all Amazon
Prime Members: There are certain things you can order on Amazon and, if you
select regular shipping instead of two day Prime shipping, you can score a $5
credit toward Amazon pantry items. I’m working on stocking mine up for
Christmas as we speak!

School clothes shopping is another story altogether.
Somehow, even though my kids are finally hitting that point where I can
reasonably predict what they’re going to be wearing next year, I still can’t
get ahead of the clothing shopping curve. It’s insane. Instead of stocking up
on clearance items, I inevitably end up paying full price for things they’re
going to have outgrown by Christmas anyway.

Which is another topic altogether. A friend of mine asked me
an interesting question the other day, and one I hadn’t really ever put a whole
lot of thought into. How many school outfits do you usually buy for your kids
for the new school year?

When reviewing, I realized that we have a general trend when
it comes to school clothes shopping. I clean out everything in their drawers that
doesn’t fit (which ends up being just about everything) and then shop until
they have five full outfits, one set of dress clothes for concerts, and in
Princess C’s case, at least one, sometimes two “girlie” dresses or skirt sets
for if she feels like dressing up. The boys get a pair of sneakers and a pair
of boots, and Princess C grabs sneakers and some kind of dress shoe. (Her red
boots are the favorite right now.)

What's on your usual school clothes shopping list? Feel free to share in the comments, along with any awesome tips or tricks you have about saving money while you do it-because let's face it, with the price of things these days, we parents need all the help we can get!

Thanks for listening to me ramble. My goal is to invest more
time blogging this year than I did last, and I look forward to sharing more of
our misadventures with you! Have a fantastic week guys.